The Canterbury Tales

During his life, Geoffrey Chaucer (born
c.1340) was courtier, diplomat, revenue collector, administrator, negotiator,
overseer of building projects, landowner and knight of the shire. He was servant, retainer, husband, friend and
father, but is now mainly known as a poet and 'the father of English
literature', a postion to which he was raised by other writers in the
generation after his death. It was
Boccaccio's Decameron which inspired
Chaucer, in the 1390s, to begin work on The
Canterbury Tales, which was still unfinished at his death in October 1400.
It tells the story of a group of 30 pilgrims who meet at the Tabard Inn in
Southwark, on the south bank of the Thames opposite the city of London, and
travel together to visit the then famous shrine of St Thomas Becket in
Canterbury cathedral. The tavern host,
who accompanies them, suggests that they amuse one another along the way by
telling stories, with the best storyteller awarded a meal in the tavern (paid
for by all the others) on their return.
The stories told by the pilgrims range from bawdy comedies through
saints' lives and moral tracts to courtly romances, always delivered with a
generous helping of Chaucer's own sly wit and ironic humour. Although basing
his characters on the stereotypes of 'estates satire', Chaucer succeeds in his
aim of producing an overview of his times and their culture, for posterity, in
the manner of Italian, proto-Renaissance, writers.

This transcription and edition is taken
from British Library MS Harley 7334, produced within ten years of Chaucer's
death. The on-page notes and glosses aim
to enable readers with little or no previous experience of medieva